Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.”
The scene went on to the despairing interview with Ophelia, which was throughout performed with such splendid force and feeling as to awaken a perfect hurricane of applause;—then the curtain went down, the lights went up, the orchestra recommenced, and again inquisitive eyes were turned towards the latest new-comer in the stalls who had made his quiet entrance in the very midst of the great philosophical soliloquy. He was immediately discovered to be a person well worth observing; and observed he was accordingly, though he seemed quite unaware of the attention he was attracting. Yet he was singular-looking enough to excite a little curiosity even among modern fashionable Londoners, who are accustomed to see all sorts of eccentric beings, both male and female, æsthetic and commonplace; and he was so distinctly separated from ordinary folk by his features and bearing, that the rather loud whisper of an irrepressible young American woman, “I’d give worlds to know who that man is!” was almost pardonable under the circumstances. His skin was dark as a mulatto’s,—yet smooth, and healthily coloured by the warm blood flushing through the olive tint,—his eyes seemed black, but could scarcely be seen on account of the extreme length and thickness of their dark lashes,—the fine, rather scornful curve of his short upper lip was partially hidden by a black moustache; and with all this blackness and darkness about his face his hair, of which he seemed to have an extraordinary profusion, was perfectly white. Not merely a silvery white, but a white as pronounced as that of a bit of washed fleece or newly-fallen snow. In looking at him it was impossible to decide whether he was old or young,—because, though he carried no wrinkles or other defacing marks of Time’s power to destroy, his features wore an impress of such stern and deeply-resolved thought as is seldom or never the heritage of those to whom youth still belongs. Nevertheless, he seemed a long way off from being old,—so that, altogether, he was a puzzle to his neighbours in the stalls, as well as to certain fair women in the boxes, who levelled their opera-glasses at him with a pertinacity which might have made him uncomfortably self-conscious had he looked up. Only he did not look up; he leaned back in his seat with a slightly listless air, studied his programme intently, and appeared half asleep, owing to the way in which his eyelids drooped, and the drowsy sweep of his lashes. The irrepressible American girl almost forgot Hamlet, so absorbed was she in staring at him, in spite of the sotto-voce remonstrances of her decorous mother, who sat beside her,—and presently, as if aware of, or annoyed by, her scrutiny, he lifted his eyes, and looked full at her. With an instinctive movement she recoiled,—and her own eyes fell. Never in all her giddy, thoughtless little life had she seen such fiery, brilliant, night-black orbs,—they made her feel uncomfortable,—gave her the “creeps,” as she afterwards declared;—she shivered, drawing her satin opera-wrap more closely about her, and stared at the stranger no more. He soon removed his piercing gaze from her to the stage, for the now great “Play scene” of Hamlet was in progress, and was from first to last a triumph for the actor chiefly concerned. At the next fall of the curtain, a fair dissipated-looking young fellow leaned over from the third row of stalls, and touched the white-haired individual lightly on the shoulder.
“My dear El-Râmi! You here? At a theatre? Why, I should never have thought you capable of indulging in such frivolity!”
“Do you consider Hamlet frivolous?” queried the other, rising from his seat to shake hands, and showing himself to be a man of medium height, though having such peculiar dignity of carriage as made him appear taller than he really was.
“Well, no!”—and the young man yawned rather effusively, “To tell you the truth, I find him insufferably dull.”
“You do?” and the person addressed as El-Râmi smiled slightly. “Well,—naturally you go with the opinions of your age. You would no doubt prefer a burlesque?”
“Frankly speaking, I should! And now I begin to think of it, I don’t know really why I came here. I had intended to look in at the Empire—there’s a new ballet going on there—but a fellow at the club gave me this stall, said it was a ‘first-night,’ and all the rest of it—and so——”